I took a wine-glass and the decanter, and returned.
Geraldine, when she saw the decanter, shook her head, just as children shake their heads at the medicine bottle. But I was firm, and poured out a glass of the ruby wine. I put my hand behind her head and told her she must drink, drink it right off. She did as she was bid, and made a face; she said it was, bitter, and I said "Nonsense." Then her eyes became sleepy, and she lay with them fixed on mine; then her eyelids began to droop with sleep. Oh, how jealous I felt of sleep. And now I could not see her eyes at all. She was breathing deeply, and her lips now and then gave a little twitch. I sat holding her hand and stroking it. I sat for twenty minutes watching her. How light her breathing had suddenly become, and now suddenly she caught her breath and smiled as if she beheld some one in her dreams. I heard the galloping of a horse from the avenue, but I did not heed.
I waited for the next breath, but it never came. The smile had parted her lips, but she did not breathe; the eyelids lifted a tiny bit, but the eyes did not seem to see.
I said "Geraldine." No answer.
What was that furious ringing of bells, and that thundering as at a door? I heard it, but never heeded.
"Geraldine, Geraldine," I whispered. "Geraldine, wake, I am waiting for you." No answer, but the sound of the wind wailing in the trees.
She never moved, the smile on her face never changed. I sobbed. I turned round. Wilder was entering the room, he had just arrived. When he saw me dressed as I was he threw up his hands. He did not look at the form on the bed; he looked at the decanter, he smelt the glass, and he gave a little senile, dreary kind of laugh. He pointed to it and made a motion as if drinking. I knew what he meant,—it was one of his opium decanters mislabled Roussillon.
Then he sat down by the form on the bed, with his hands on his knees and his head bowed, and I heard him murmuring the words "My child."
The turret clock struck seven; with the last stroke I heard the shrill neigh of a horse, and the sound of a hoof striking sharply on granite.
It was as if to say: the play is ended, the curtain has fallen, never, never to rise again.